Was just talking to someone about how things used to be. I grew up dirt poor. Thankfully we had a huge veggie garden. My dad would hunt for meat for our dinner table. In time he had a chicken house. I never knew of so many different ways to use chicken. We had a cow, pig, sheep and a workhorse, Molly. I learned to ride bareback on her. We never had the best of anything but we had what we needed to get by and we worked damn hard on the farm. Most of my clothes were hand me downs taken in or made from leftover scraps of material because of being so small compared to the rest of my siblings. I feel I am blessed to have grown up with the “less” we had. If all went to hell in a hand basket, I would at least know how to get by until things got better. I learned the hard way without even realizing it was hard, especially as a child. It was all we knew. I grew up without running water, a toilet or electricity. I survived and I could again.
Now as an old fart, I am still a “What if” or “Down the road” kind of person. What if I need milk, what if this happens down the road. No I am not being pessimistic, I just tend to look at it as “better to have and not need, than to need and not have” because we all know that day of “not needing” will come around to needing. And worrying won’t make it any easier. I have had new vehicles but will never again and I am good with that. I don’t like debt. I don’t have the best furniture, the best of this or that but I am good with that. People don’t live within their means anymore. They get a raise and it is like a green flag to spend it to get bigger and better.
I don’t go over the top for holidays. I wait for the best time to buy and snatch things up then plus get money back for using an app that gives me money back. Some might say I am tight fisted and I am on most things. And if someone asks me what I want for Christmas, I prefer homemade. Something that will give me many memories for the rest of my life instead of some trinket that I will never use.
I am also blessed to have been able to do and have the nicer things but you know what? I will take good old memories anytime over the nicer things. I do have a massage every now and then but that is the only thing I do for myself. I try to eat healthy and that might cost a dite more; I keep my pc up to date for it is my existence to the outside world as far as keeping up with friends overseas, paying my bills, doing research, doing my family history and blogging/writing. I still wear clothes from when I was in UK and after getting back home here in 2001. I’m not bothered. I’m happy and that is all that matters. When I do update appliances I research them so that I will buy what will last me my lifetime and I take care of them so they will last. And my older ones go to someone who can use them.
Spending what you don’t have is like living on borrowed time. It’s going to run out someday. I will take simplified any day over having things complicated. Being this way doesn’t afford me many friends but I am okay with that too. I’d rather have 4 quarters than 100 pennies.
LexiMe - My journey of faith 